548 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV 111. 



opportunity to deliver its thrust, the little creature reminds one 

 of the behaviour of a wrestler seeking with the utmost vigilance to 

 engage his adversary advantageously. The stroke is delivered 

 with great malice, the jaws opening widely in the act of striking, 

 and the forward thrust is no sooner accomplished than the creature 

 retracts itself to reassume its former attitude, and strikes again and 

 again — in fact, will sometimes do so till its energies are spent. 

 During the thrust the loops are straightened to their utmost, and a 

 two-foot snake may dart at and strike an object six inches or even 

 more in front of it. 



A. 



B. 



rio.o 



A. D. triyojirthj-s seenjtrom u.ttoye 

 poised before striking. 



J3 . f/o seen from hijfront 



pot serf before striking. 



I have several times tried to get this and others of this genus 

 photographed in the peculiar attitude just referred to. The last 

 occasion was in Fyzabad, but in my attempts to get the right pose I 

 was struck at again and again until the specimen lay over on its side 

 completely exhausted, and 1 picked it up with no more fight in it 



